Serious discussion, what's so bad about being Liberal/Progressive? (compare, doctor, million)
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Let's keep this discussion purely on policies and not start a flame war. This will be slightly long.
I'm a liberal and given most of the ideas Bernie Sanders put on the table during his campaign, I'm technically a progressive as I agree with most of his proposals. I've always had trouble understanding the other side and wanted to get some thoughts to better understand.
So let's start with what it means to be progressive: Progressivism is a philosophy based on the Idea of Progress, which asserts that advancement in science, technology, economic development, and social organization are vital to improve the human condition.
In hindsight, it makes complete sense, the more we know about something, the more we can put it to use to improve everyone's lives by creating opportunity which everyone has a fair shot at. Science is the key engine of this process and it bugs me that we don't invest more into scientific research and development. To start off I'll list some major policy areas that Bernie Sanders campaign was built upon and put in why I think it makes total sense.
Its not possible to respond to the whole thing in one post so im going to just pick some spots.
To start with the utter arrogance of progressivism is found right there in your definition. you presuppose that those of us that aren't progressives, don't like progress, aren't particularly amenable to science and technology. In fact progressives have long suggested that non-progs are anti-science.
The fact is, that's a lie. I have read more scientific papers across many disciplines. Science and progress are blessings. Conservatives believe in innovation and know that science and innovation two of the things that make America truly great.
As a side note, the PRogs have been in charge of our education system for more than a generation and its falling apart. you guys give lip service to education but have done a bang up job of producing idiots.
AS for SCIENCE here is one little example that undoes your note that as a progressive you like progress and science.
Back about 10 or 15 years ago, progressives got a law passed that phased out incandescent light bulb and required the purchase of hundreds of millions of CFL bulbs to replace the incandescent.
Now as a person who understands SCIENCE I was enraged. We were told by the progs that this was necessary to save the environment. But the truth is, those CFLs are FULL OF MERCURY. Hundreds of millions of CFL light bulbs are now rolling to landfills all across the nation because of this stupid Progressive law. eventually that will leach into the water table and poision us all. Thank you PROGS.
Further, the reason was the need to reduce the use of energy. well... because of my understanding of SCIENCE, at the time I knew that LED light was just a few years from being available. had we waited, we would have been able to jump to LED and bypass poisoning ourselves. Further, going to CFL actually slowed down the progress toward LED lights because it took focus away.
It was stupid. it was anit-science. and it was a PROGRESSIVE BOONDOGGLE.
That is just one of many reasons why progressivism is a dirty word in my home. PROGS do what makes them feel good. they don't really care at all about science or progress. they SAY they do but their ACTIONS speak louder.
You consider any kind of government to be "socialism" and "communism."
And yet you still choose to live in mainstream society instead of moving off-grid.
If there was a modern stateless society like the one I advocate, which I 100% believe there will be at some point, I would definitely look at moving there.
Either way, I feel like I'll do more good staying here where I can influence people that I meet rather than abandoning everyone and everything I know and hiding off the grid...plus, "running ain't freedom".
Final point is that it isn't me that needs to move. I'm just living my life and minding my own business. It's the obligation of others to leave people alone who haven't done anything wrong.
That is a lie, they say that because they know if they admitted they were going to force people, most would object. This is the deception, to lure people into thinking its a good thing. The fact is, they can not survive without forced participation. This is why these systems eventually collapse, people stop working for themselves because they realize any extra effort is confiscated in the name of equality. When there is no longer any achievers, and everyone is taking more than they put in, the system collapses and people starve (and would jump ship). These systems can only survive for the length they do by holding people at gunpoint.
I actually do think it's unsustainable on a large scale, so I agree with a lot of what you said. The reason I'll defend skepticratic is because I don't see any evidence that they want to force it on anybody. They should be allowed to form their society where everyone participates voluntarily, and then they can try to convince others to join.
If they decide to resort to force, people can fight back (or really, they so outnumber them that they just ignore them because nobody feels any obligation to obey).
News flash to the right wingers and libertarians here, if there were no taxes or government, we would still be living in the dark ages, it takes society to bring about all the progress and infastructure we have!
Completely disagree on the first sentence, and why do you conflate taxation and government with society? They're separate things.
I actually do think it's unsustainable on a large scale, so I agree with a lot of what you said. The reason I'll defend skepticratic is because I don't see any evidence that they want to force it on anybody. They should be allowed to form their society where everyone participates voluntarily, and then they can try to convince others to join.
If they decide to resort to force, people can fight back (or really, they so outnumber them that they just ignore them because nobody feels any obligation to obey).
They have had that opportunity always. Nobody is stopping them and there have been various "communes" in the past, but most find out quickly they don't work to the level of result most expect. The same issues that happen always come up. Some won't work, others do less than work and yet others have to pick up the slack. Eventually, people move on or they kick out the worthless ones (look up what the communes used to think of Bernie Sanders).
Now if that is all it was, I agree... more power to them, but... note what skept was getting at? Note how he brought up he just wants workers rights to be protected? You do realize this requires government to dictate to the business as to how they are to operate in order to attend to those "workers"? So then we are back to the old problem of forced participation in order to serve some naive ideal.
If civilization is too burdensome, there are remote cabins in Montana available. No one will bother you.
False. There are property taxes that still have to be paid and any income you make even through trade is required to be estimated in income value and paid. There is also many federal regulations to which must be met and orders by the EPA which also must be met or there is risk of fines and action against you.
See, there is no "safe space" in this country anymore for a "lawful" person.
That said, taxes aren't the problem, it is redistribution taxes and taxing people to pay for things they don't need or use. That is theft, that is subjugation and there is no legitimate argument you can make to justify it. Make no mistake, such are no different than a band of thugs who use might to take what they "believe" is rightfully theirs. Governments who act in such manners are no different and no amount of "common good" will excuse the criminal acts.
Let's keep this discussion purely on policies and not start a flame war. This will be slightly long.
I'm a liberal and given most of the ideas Bernie Sanders put on the table during his campaign, I'm technically a progressive as I agree with most of his proposals. I've always had trouble understanding the other side and wanted to get some thoughts to better understand.
So let's start with what it means to be progressive: Progressivism is a philosophy based on the Idea of Progress, which asserts that advancement in science, technology, economic development, and social organization are vital to improve the human condition.
In hindsight, it makes complete sense, the more we know about something, the more we can put it to use to improve everyone's lives by creating opportunity which everyone has a fair shot at. Science is the key engine of this process and it bugs me that we don't invest more into scientific research and development. To start off I'll list some major policy areas that Bernie Sanders campaign was built upon and put in why I think it makes total sense.
Taxes: Tax the rich more and lower everyone else's taxes
Bernie's platform on taxes was essentially to reduce income inequality, raising taxes on the rich and reducing taxes on the middle class and poor as the richest of the richest earn their income via capital gains, and the rest earn their income via working. He gave some troubling statistics where the top 1% owns something like 30% of the wealth, and top 5% owns more than 60% of the wealth. The logic was, if it was true that if a rich person had a ton of capital, they would create a ton of jobs from the top down. Given various statistics among many others with factual evidence, this is not the case. A good one that Bernie pointed out is that even though America works longer hours and becomes more productive, incomes haven't been keeping up with the pace of productivity. Economists have long argued that to create a net increase in aggregate demand, most of the wealth needs to be in the middle class, the actual definition of what is middle class remains to be debated but a reasonable one is to assume 70% of the population, where the 15% is at the lower and top end of the scale. To fix this Bernie proposed a set of policies to help people of the middle and lower classes move up in the income ladder (Namely education, healthcare and equality).
Education: Free education at public institutions
A huge part of Bernie's platform was to make every single public college and university free for all students. The reason behind it is, there's a correlation between one's income and their education level. Generally, the higher one's education is, the higher their income is. To help the poor and middle class, making education free allows anyone to study and increases the pool of students who otherwise wouldn't be able to attend a school or would have to take on tons of debt. Once these students graduate, they will get a better job, be more competitive in the marketplace and also pay higher taxes compared to someone at the bottom of the income ladder. It's obviously worth the investment to pay for someone's education, then have the rest of their life to generate more taxes from their higher earnings.
Healthcare: Universal Healthcare
Another huge part of his platform was the complete overhaul of the healthcare system and make universal healthcare the defacto system. His argument was very simple, Americans pay more in healthcare per capita than every single other major industrialized country on earth. It makes sense to have a universal healthcare system because, since people do not have the same incomes, it hurts the people at the lower income levels than it does those at the higher income levels when they see the doctor and receive care. It's gotten so bad that people cannot even afford the insurance to even have at least some kind of protection.
Equality: Equality of pay for all Americans, civil rights, social justice regardless of background, sexual orientation, gender, religious faith.
Equality of pay for women, as statistics still show that women still get paid less than men for the same jobs. Reasoning behind this is, equality provides everyone an opportunity to make something for themselves and go up in the economic ladder. Discrimination of opportunities doesn't need factual evidence to back it up, it's inherently fair to not discriminate and a level playing field is pretty obvious for fairness to help the lower and middle classes improve themselves.
Your lack of knowledge of your own politics is too overwhelming to correct here. The problem boils down to millions of you acting as robots because you don't understand what you are doing nor why. Not all conservatives understand either, but the coming conflict between the robots controlled by evil people, and those attempting to preserve civilizational order, is going to be scary to say the least.
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